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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Jeff Keppinger Trade Analysis

Late July means it is trade season and the first move of the year for the Giants is getting second baseman Jeff Keppinger from the Houston Astros.

In the deal the Giants sent pitchers Henry Sosa and Jason Stoffel the other way and my first inclination is that this is a solid trade but lets take a deeper look on how this one grades out.

Keppinger's value:

Keppinger is putting up a nice year with a .307/ .320/ .436 line, it is good enough for an above average wOBA of .326 which would put him among the top half of Giants hitters this season. He doesn't walk much (just a 2.4% walk rate) but he also doesn't strike out much at all (4.1%).

He will put the ball in play and he will occasionally hit one over the fence. I imagine that he will end up being the guy in the 2 spot for the Giants for the remainder of the year.

His defense is iffy but I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say it is average at 2nd base and bad at short stop.

Taking all of this into account and I think you have a 1.5 to 2 win player. Over the remaining 65 games he will probably be worth about 0.7 to 1 win and will be paid approximately 900k. That leaves a surplus value of about $3.1 million. In addition he is arbitration eligible for next season which if we again say about 1.5 wins above replacement at 80% of market value he has another $1.5 million in surplus value.

All said the Giants got over $4.5 million in surplus value in this deal.

What they gave up:

The Giants gave up a couple of low tier prospects. Both Henry Sosa and Jason Stoffel would be fringe bullpen guys and would be rated as C prospects at best. Stoffel at 22 would be worth about $2.1 million in trade value with Sosa at 25 being worth about $1.5 million in trade value.

Neither of these guys pictured to be impact arms in a stocked bullpen and have cumulative value of about $3.6 million in trade value.

Conclusion:

This seems to be a very solid trade for the Giants. They got a good replacement at a position that was looking pretty barren (this allows Mike Fontenot to move over to short for more games) at a pretty low cost. They didn't have to over pay and in fact might have gotten a pretty good deal in that in my calculations came out a head by about a million dollars.